Bad news first:
1) The Sox have been a .500 team since May 27.
2) But, thanks to April/May, even if they continue at .500 the rest of the season the Yankees or Blue Jays need to win at a .620 clip to catch up.
So, while it'd be nice to see the Sox, you know, win for a while, it's nowhere near panic time. It should be an interesting second half. You have to assume some players will cool off (Lowell, Youkilis, the red-hot Julio Lugo), but if Manny and Ortiz actually start hitting like Manny and Ortiz, the Red Sox (not to mention my poor fantasy team) should be in pretty good shape.
Thoughts?
At the risk of sounding like a member of the media, or worse - Joe Morgan - I'm too lazy to do the research, but I would be pretty sure that over any 6 week period every great team has stretches of mediocrity. The stat that I read was that they are 17-19 since the series against the Yanks. Since that time they have:
ReplyDeleteHad the long overnight flight
Have made two west coast trips
Have played all but 10 of those games against teams currently at .500 or better
If you go back to the CLE series right before NY, they have played every team in the AL that is over .500
And due to some tminig and bad luck have had to play some teams in the middle of some very hot streaks (COL, SEA, OAK and now DET).
If they play .500 for the NEXT six weeks. I will worry. As long as they keep getting good starts and stay relatively injury free, I won't worry.
We have all read how the Yanks play their first 28 games post ASB agaisnt some real bad teams (do they play themselves?) Well as for competition over .500, the Sox have only one 4 game set with the Tribe in their first 21 games.
August is a tough month (another west coast trip and a schedule that includes SEA, LAA x 2, and NYY), so it wold be very nice to keep this thing at double digits. The last thing we want is to roll into NY on August 28 with the headlines reading "NY can pull within two with a sweep."
That being said, the headlines have said that in reverse for years. And it almost never happens.
I agree - Manny and Ortiz need to start hitting. Crisp and Drew seem to have evened out a bit. And even though the talk radio idiots have probably already worn out the panic button by mid day today, I think they are in great shape.
2004 Sox: played .500 ball between April 29 and August 15. They were stuck at 8 games above .500 for three and a half months!
ReplyDeleteBut then they went 34-12. Which is insane.
Exactly.
ReplyDeleteThis year the Sox went 32 - 11 between April 11 and May 29.